Reviews for Smiley Book of Colors

Horn Book Guide Reviews 2012 Fall"In every moment, / All the day through: / Smile or frown? / It's up to you." Platitudinous rhymes detract from a cool concept: Kaiser fills her book with sharp color photos of everyday sights (knots on a tree, macaroni in a bowl, etc.) that seem to exhibit eyes and a smiling mouth. The photos are pointlessly grouped by color.

----------------------Kirkus Reviews 2012 February #1A photographic collection of found faces smiles up at readers, while overly upbeat rhymes try to instill a positive attitude. Clever photos of everyday objects that reveal smiley faces hidden all around are the main focus, and they are almost enough to carry the book on their own. Two undone shirt buttons and the gap they leave form one smiley. Another is on the underside of a toy train. There is even a straight-mouthed face formed by the interplay between blue sky and heavy cloud cover. If nothing else, the photos are sure to get kids looking at the world around them in new ways. But this effort goes beyond, adding too much to too little and creating an unsuccessful hodgepodge. Her smileys are presented in color groups, but the pictures are so inherently interesting that their colors become secondary. Too, there is the problem that several of the smileys are difficult to see. However, it is in the rhyming text that the book finally falls flat. "Smile! Be happy! / You get to pick-- / When something is icky, / Do you focus on ick? // Look all around / And notice the good! / Focus on that. / We think you should." The message and its delivery are disappointingly out of sync. See the pictures without the treacly text and upload photo contributions to support Operation Smile at SpontaneousSmiley.com instead. (Picture book. 3-5) Copyright Kirkus 2012 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

----------------------Publishers Weekly Reviews 2012 January #3

There are signs of joy all around us, declares this cheerful and clever book developed from the Web site SpontaneousSmiley.com. Photographs grouped by color capture smiley faces hidden in an orange metal beam (rivets form the eyes, rust the mouth), a cloud, and even a pair of balloons tied to a crowd barrier strung with caution tape. A trite motivational poem ("Look all around/ And notice the good!/ Focus on that./ We think you should") accompanies the photographs, which are the real highlight. Despite the weakness of the verse, it's undeniably fun to find quirky faces in unexpected everyday places, and as an added bonus, an extra 32 images appear as thumbnails in the closing spread. Ages 3-6. (Mar.)

[Page ]. Copyright 2012 PWxyz LLC

----------------------School Library Journal Reviews 2012 March

K-Gr 1--Smile and look at the bright side of a situation is the moral in this concept book. Each four-line verse is a tribute to a color in the accompanying photo with a deeper message in the text of choosing to be happy. The vividly colored photos show smiling faces found on a car bumper, frosting on a cake, a tree, etc. Eleven colors are featured with, typically, two to four photos for each one. Kaiser started collecting photos of smiles that she found in the real world and from that hobby created a website and now a book. Fun and upbeat, the book could be used for teaching colors and the importance of having a positive attitude.--Sandra Welzenbach, Villarreal Elementary School, San Antonio, TX